Immigration Plan Doesn't Add Up

WASHINGTON (By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Jim Puzzanghera, LATimes) May 24, 2007 — Two immigrants apply for a green card and the government has to choose: Who gets it?

"Ray," 45, is a computer programmer from Singapore with a graduate degree. He speaks fluent English and has never worked in the United States, but he has a job offer from a U.S. company.

"Carla," 29, is a hospital orderly from Mexico with a high school equivalency diploma. She knows enough English to have passed the government's citizenship tests in English and civics and has worked for six years in the United States, where she lives with her stepfather and her mother, a legal resident.

It sounds like a word problem from a high school textbook, but it's from a congressional staff summary of the new Senate immigration bill, which is using simple math to offer a solution to long-standing philosophical divides over who should be granted a green card, which signifies legal permanent residence.

By assigning points for quantitative factors, including education, employment, English fluency and extended family, a bipartisan group of senators hopes to calm the passionate immigration debates of the last 40 years.

But as details emerge, the same businesses and legislators the formula was designed to reconcile have started picking it apart — determined to either rewrite the formula to suit their needs or scrap it altogether.

Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, called the formula a "Rubik's Cube" that pitted businesses against each other.

"We see a need in both skilled and unskilled types of jobs, and we do have a concern that it favors the skilled over the unskilled," Johnson said.

Companies that depend on high-skilled labor don't like the plan either.

"What they want to do is create a whole new layer of bureaucracy and expect that [it] is going to keep pace with the changing economy,'' said Robert Hoffman, vice president of government and public affairs for Oracle Corp.

The point system would mark a radical departure from current immigration policy, which largely favors family ties in distributing about 1.1 million coveted green cards a year.

Under the new system, the number of green cards allocated to relatives of either a U.S. citizen or a current green card holder would fall from 87% to 62%, while those based on occupation would nearly triple, from 13% to 38%.

Applicants awarded at least 55 of the 100 points possible under the proposed system would probably get green cards, although that "pass mark" could be adjusted with changing demand for higher- or lower-skilled workers, congressional staff members said. They could also receive up to 10 points for having extended family living legally in the U.S. — but only after accumulating 55 points based on their education, employment and English fluency.

Under the congressional summary of the proposed formula, Carla would score 24 points for working in a high-demand healthcare job and 10 points for having worked in the U.S. more than five years. She would receive 6 points each for her employer's recommendation, high school equivalency diploma, passing score on a government English and civics tests, and being the adult child of a legal resident, plus 3 points for being between the ages of 25 and 39.

Carla's total: 61 points.

Ray would receive 28 points for his graduate degree in software engineering, 15 points for scoring above 75 on a standardized English proficiency test and 6 points for his U.S. job offer.

Ray's total: 49 points.

High-tech companies, which currently recruit immigrants with specialized skills and then sponsor them for either temporary visas or a separate pool of 140,000 annual employment-based green cards, argue that they need workers like Ray. Although they could still recruit workers under the proposed system, they say there is no guarantee that the new formula will deliver the specific ones they want.

"We don't understand what it is that's so inefficient about employers selecting the talent rather than the point system doing it for us," said Hoffman, the Oracle official who also heads Compete America, a coalition of companies and business groups that opposes the proposal.

With point values written into federal law, Hoffman said, it would be difficult to adjust the system to reflect rapidly changing needs at companies like Google, which in 2004 saw demand spike for mathematicians to develop search algorithms.

The point system doesn't account for differences in training among highly skilled workers, potentially treating a master's in engineering from, say, Caltech, as equivalent to a degree from a less-respected school in the U.S. or abroad, technology industry lobbyists said.

The point system also worries business owners who employ low-skilled immigrants and fear their workers will be at a disadvantage when it comes to accruing points.

They argue that low-skilled workers such as roofers and waitresses perform "essential jobs" for the economy and that their on-the-job training should count just as much as a bachelor's or master's degree.

Under the proposed system, employment in Labor Department-defined "specialty occupations" — most of which require at least a bachelor's degree and are heavily weighted toward technical, scientific, medical and business positions — counts for 20 points.

Applicants in the 30 occupations expected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to gain the most jobs between 2000 and 2010 are granted 16 points. Along with nurses, teachers or software engineers, these include fast-food workers, cashiers and janitors.

"Why do you even need education in there? If it's a high-demand sector, why not point the green cards that way?" said John F. Gay, chief lobbyist for the National Restaurant Assn.

"The point system is skewed toward high-skill [and] high-tech, and there are so few green cards involved that it looks like there won't be any left for unskilled workers," he said.

The point system, unsuccessfully floated by Republicans during past immigration debates, has the support of President Bush and conservatives at the Heritage Foundation. Proponents like Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) call it a "merit-based system" that screens out immigrants with few English or work skills — workers who, supporters say, are likely to end up in low-wage jobs with no health insurance, costing taxpayers money.

"It's a way in which we can refocus our immigration system to best meet the needs of the U.S. economy," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Democrats who are pushing the plan, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), say negotiations with Republicans over the point system produced a fair compromise that will help low-skilled workers and their families.

Versions of the point system have been used in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain. Though they create pools of skilled workers, they don't match those workers with specific jobs the way employment-based systems do, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Point systems work best when they can be easily adjusted to meet changing economic needs and when they are one of several ways of selecting immigrants, he said.

"It cannot be the only mechanism," Papademetriou said — a contention also made by some technology industry lobbyists, who suggest restricting the merit-based system to only a small portion of the annual green card allotment.

In addition, some Democrats are proposing ways to make the point system more family-friendly.

"How many of our forefathers would have measured up under this point system? How many would have been turned back at Ellis Island?" Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said Wednesday. He said the point system "places a person's job skills over his character and work ethic."

He and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) are planning to introduce amendments that would allow workers to receive points for relatives living legally in the U.S. without having to first reach the 55-point threshold.

They would also raise the total potential points for workers with relatives in the United States from 10 to 15, and place a five-year limit on the entire point system.

But Kyl called maintaining the point system in its current form a key component of the "grand bargain" between Republicans and Democrats on immigration. "That system was excruciatingly, carefully calibrated,'' he said. "That is part of the bargain.''

Point by point

The immigration bill before the Senate would evaluate applicants for permanent residence using a point system that considers employment, education, fluency in English, knowledge of civics and — to a lesser extent than the current system — family ties in the United States. A minimum of 55 out of 100 points would be the threshold for consideration, although that figure could change over time.

Employment: 47 points maximum

Number of points based on type of job and its importance to the U.S. national interest, employer recommendation, length of experience, worker's age.

Education: 28 points

Based on graduate school or college degrees, high school diploma/GED, vocational training, apprenticeship.

English and civics: 15 points

Points based on level of English fluency and passage of U.S. citizenship tests in English and civics.

Extended family: 10 points

Points based on applicant's relationship — either an adult child (age 21 or over) or sibling — to a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident.

100 points total

The point system would not apply to workers covered under the proposed temporary "Z visa" program for current illegal immigrants unless they applied for a green card to stay in the U.S. full time. If so, they would be eligible for up to 50 extra points based on how long they have worked in the United States, particularly in agriculture, and whether they own their home or have family health insurance.

Source: Office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)